Not sure how familiar the folks in this sub are with how boxing works, but I'll explain.

Boxing has multiple governing bodies: the WBA, WBC, WBO, and IBF. Each of these governing bodies handles their own belts and has their own policies as far as mandatory opponents and all that stuff. That's not important here.

What is important here is that boxing has different broadcast entities involved in it much like battle rap has all these different leagues. You have Top Rank Boxing on ESPN, Premier Boxing Champions on FOX/Showtime, and then you have Matchroom Boxing with Eddie Hearn and DAZN. Now, if you ask any boxing fan what the main reason is that big fights don't get made, the answer is politics. Similarly, if you ask battle rap fans why big battles don't always get made when two guys are in their primes and ready to battle, the answer is the same: politics.

After listening to K Shine's whole rant that was dropped in here yesterday, I noticed a lot of parallels. URL, much like some boxing promoters, wants to hoard talent and not allow them to battle elsewhere, putting battle rappers, their careers, and the fans at their mercy. Similarly, many fights in boxing get blocked because promoters don't want their top guys fighting on other networks against other top guys without them profiting from it in a way that they deem adequate.

For a real example, let's take Gervonta Davis. For years, Gervonta Davis was a PBC fighter who did business with Floyd Mayweather and Leonard Ellerbe. Super popular PPV guy, knockout artist, exciting fighter to watch. Now, much like K Shine wants to battle whenever, whomever, wherever, Davis wanted to fight the top guys—the Devin Haneys, the Ryan Garcias, the other top guys at his weight. However, Mayweather and Ellerbe wanted him to only fight PBC guys, which was problematic because PBC lightweights aren't the best lightweights. According to him, he doesn't do business with them anymore, and he and Ryan Garcia are now supposedly supposed to fight in 2023.

The same problem applies to battle rap. They want URL people to battle other URL people and keep them from other platforms, which ruins the sport and takes opportunities from other leagues (Eazy vs Hitman on Chrome 23, for another recent example).

In the end, what you could end up with is a situation very similar to boxing—one where fans lose interest over time and it's harder to attract new fans because of the lack of top guys fighting (or in this case, battling) at their peaks when the battle is most in demand. You'll always have your legacy fans, but as one redditor once said to me on another post I made, you need new fans to keep growing.

What do you think? Sorry about the length of this post. I wanted to make sure there was enough detail in here.